


Could-Be Love

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "What skinny love is is a love that’s doomed to failure- both parties mutually do love each other but don’t admit it, the love is then not nourished and the parties will eventually drift apart.Make me cry."It’s hard not knowing exactly how eldritch/inhuman your partner is, and wanting to protect them from that. Jack and Tooth both independently decide that it’s better for the other person if they don’t love them as much as they could.
Relationships: Jack Frost/Toothiana (Guardians of Childhood)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: Rainbow Snowcone Short Fics





	Could-Be Love

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 11/18/2015.

Tooth knew what could happen, and maybe she was a little afraid. Afraid of herself, afraid for Jack. Afraid of Jack, afraid for herself.  
  
It didn’t seem right that there would be so much fear, in something that seemed like it should only make the both of them happy. She knew who she could ask about that, but she was also afraid of the answers she might get. She didn’t want to learn that there really was something to be afraid of.  
  
If she loved the way she could, if she loved with everything she could, it wouldn’t be only flights under the moonlight and playful games, journeys to places she hadn’t see in centuries, holding hands and gentle kisses.  
  
She was the keeper of memory and a warrior. She was ancient. She was more than just a light thing of feathers, and Jack—it didn’t seem like Jack suspected any of this. Jack didn’t know how she could love, how this love might send a tide changing in the world through all of memory, through him.  
  
He was so young.  
  
And he did not love her the way she could love him. If he could, she would feel it. She was sure she would.  
  
And so she flew with him around the world, and kissed him gently, and laughed with him, but when she wanted to hold on too tightly, she made sure to let go.  
  
Jack was so young. He didn’t need the burden of a love that could shift worlds.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack didn’t know what could happen, and he was thrilled. He knew only that he was joy, and when he was around Tooth, he felt more joyous than ever. Her laugh was the best laugh he had ever heard, her hands were the best he had ever held, the path she cut through the sky was the best one he had ever followed.  
  
He wanted to be with her, he wanted to be with her, he wanted to be with her…forever.  
  
When he thought about that, he had to have the wind set him down for a while. Forever really meant forever, for them. Did he still mean it, thinking like that?  
  
 _Yes._ The voice inside him was deep and silent, and it felt like the ice of ages past calling to the snowflakes that bloomed from clouds when he passed by, it felt like a _something_ that he could know very, very well, a something that connected everything from babies’ laughs to the victor in a war watching their enemy sign the final treaty.  
  
The feeling didn’t pass with the voice, and Jack knew it was part of him, then, but how could a part of him be so vast? How could it _be_ in the first place? He didn’t know who he could ask about it, and even if he did, he knew he would be afraid of the answers he might get.  
  
Even now, he was immediately afraid of what would happen if Tooth knew. This was more than just memories he had that he hadn’t told her about yet. This was some fundamental change. This was him becoming different than he had been before.  
  
And if he told Tooth this, what if she told him that whatever this was that was in Jack now was something she was rightfully afraid of? He didn’t want to scare anyone, least of all her, but he was already nearing terror with this change in himself.  
  
Especially because there was so much joy in it, and so much joy in his feelings for Tooth, too. If he stayed with her, if he loved her the way he wished he could, he could not hide this new vastness about his mind, his self, his center. What would it do? What could it do? What would he do? What could he do, with so much joy to grow on? What would he become?  
  
Would he be a being inhuman enough to be absolutely serious and rational in saying _forever_? Oh yes. Would he ever be inhuman enough for _forever_ to be always easy? Oh no.  
  
He didn’t want to burden Tooth that way. The kind of forever he wished for…it included too much, didn’t it? Not just love, but synchronicity. The worst times and the best. Each other’s One, forever. Could Tooth even want him that way, with whatever he was becoming?  
  
He didn’t want to make her answer that question.  
  
It was probably for the best that she stopped holding onto him so tightly.


End file.
